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- Karnabharam or The Anguish of Karna (literally: The Burden of Karna) is a Sanskrit one-act play written by the Indian dramatist Bhasa, an Indian playwright complimented even by the Kalidasa in the beginning of his play Malavikagnimitram. The play describes the mental pain of Karna on the previous day of the Kurukshetra War. Karnabharam is essentially the retelling of an episode of the Indian epic Mahabharata but the story is presented in a different perspective in the play. It is perhaps the only potential tragedy in the classic Sanskrit literature, presented in a form that comes closest to the "Vyayoga" (Sanskrit: व्यायोग) form of one-act play. That is so perhaps because the Natya Shastra ordains the playwrights to create plays for recreation, and essentially create happy endings. In Karnabharam, the tragedy does not occur on-stage (Unlike Urubhanga, a tragedy that shows Duryodhana dying - again, written by Bhasa). Karnabharam shows the valiant, generous, righteous Karna riding out towards the battle-ground, where his death under heart-wrenching circumstances is certain. The basic plot of this play is inspired by Mahabharata. Karnabharam is known today as one of the 13 manuscripts of plays which are generally attributed to Bhasa with some dissent. The Malayali script of these plays was found on 105 palm leaves, believed to be about 300 years old when found. Mahamahopadhyaya T. Ganapati Sastri made this discovery as part of his field research at the site called Manalikkar located in Kanyakumari district, which is now within the city of Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram). The discovery of these manuscripts was made over a period starting from 1909 when ten plays and some parts of the eleventh play were found. None were carrying the name of their author. Soon after, two more were found and lastly, another intact play, ascertained as Dootavakyam was found - thus bringing the number of plays to 13. (en)
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